Stormcage
by NellyN
Summary: The sequel to "The Doctor is Out." With the comatose Doctor taken hostage, and Stormcage under attack by the monstrous Gorgorans, Amy, River and Rory must fight for their lives in the prison's narrow shafts. Rated T for monsters.
1. From the blue book

From "The Blue Book of Cardiff" (Torchwood File DR-54966^27)

_I'm writing now so that if we don't make it, you'll know what happened to me. Hell of a time to write in a diary, you might be thinking. But I have to rest sometime. And I've no intention of dying mysteriously._

_Amy is sleeping. We've both had a few good scares, and there's worse to come. Three days ago (only three days!) the prison was attacked by an advance guard from the Gorgoran Empire. Less than an hour ago the first invasion ship arrived. I've no idea what their ultimate goal is—if you're reading this, I suppose it's your problem now—but they tend to work for clients, not alone.  
_

_Your friends Amy and Rory arrived yesterday, and they __were__ alone. I'm not sure what that means, but it's all right. If you're alive, I'm not afraid, because you'll solve it in the end; you never needed me for that bit. And if you're dead, I'm still not afraid. Being in prison has trained me up on waiting, and I don't expect it to be long.__  
_

_I've sent Rory and some survivors down to the core. It's a crank-ion burst generator; I'm hoping it will confuse the Gorgorans. Amy and I are trying to get to the TARDIS. _

_Among the surviving prisoners, the leaders are Tom Marginy and Melina Maakar. Patrick Belkin is the cleverest, and he has a good reputation here, but he is not trustworthy. Be careful with him. _

_Worse comes to worst, smashing the energy core should buy you some time without causing too much radiation spill on the lower levels. _

_I'm not sure if any of this will get to you in time to matter. If it doesn't, it's not your fault. There is a raw order to everything. Don't forget.  
_

_Love always,_

_River_

###

The Gorgoran ship hunched over Stormcage Prison. It gleamed in the lightning storm and glimmered under searchlights that were now controlled by Gorgorans. Each time the light fell upon it its form seemed to change a little, as if little bits of it were moving and crawling over each other, like a colony of ants. Ultimately it resembled nothing so much as a chitinous parasite, drawing its energy from the stone trap.

At first glance, the Gorgoran army was difficult to distinguish from their ship. They, too seethed and re-formed. One might make out a limb, or a talon, but never a face nor an eye. Even identifying details seemed to be swallowed-up by pale flesh that literally crawled.

There was no dissent in the Gorgoran ranks. Strictly speaking, there were no ranks in the Gorgoran ranks. The Gorgorans made their decisions as one and acted instantly. Dissent was impossible.

But disquiet—that was a different sort of thing.

Six hunched figures stood in a circle in the heart of the ship. One extended a long, lean arm into the middle of the circle. It opened its hand. The tips of its talons encircled a tiny model that seemed to be constructed of metal pins. The model floated above its palm without touching.

It was a box.

Karshtakavaar, one suggested, without speaking.

It was not possible. The model was perfect. Yet it emitted no energy. The nature of the Karshtakavaar Box was energy. Even a model would resonate. This was merely a picture of a wooden box, useless and mystifying as a shell that contained no egg.

Dead, said one.

But still dangerous, another agreed.

We should take it away. Let _them_ deal with it.

Karshtakavaar, one insisted, and the idea shuddered over the small group. If he is here we must kill him.

He is not here. We would know. Even if his dead body were here, we would feel him. Dead box. Puzzle box. Do we doubt it?

The model changed hands. The Gorgorans passed it round the circle, turning without touching, probing it with their sightless eyes and tongueless mouths. When a Gorgoran had passed the model on, it made an exact copy. In moments there were six tiny perfect boxes in six sharp hands. None gave off the right kind of energy

Silence. They did not doubt.

Still, there was certainty and then there was certainty. Four armed clockwork men were dispatched from the ship to surround the box. If there was any stir or sign of life, or any attempt at rescue, they were ordered to destroy the box immediately.

Then there was the other matter. The minor problem of the prisoners who still lived. The ones who had had escaped the first attack. Clever people. But now that the Gorgoran army had arrived, the survivors' options were narrowing. Very soon, they would have no options at all.

The decision to eliminate was also action. From the dust and air and rainwater, the Gorgorans formed spiders. They drew from the energy reserves of their own ship and made the spiders hot and alive and hungry. The creatures—none much larger than a human thumb—balanced on their new glass-tipped claws and skittered toward the vents. They slipped through the slatted covers and fell down, down, down to the safe and hidden places. Even if Karshtakavaar lived, it would not be for long.

There was certainty and there was certainty. The Gorgorans sat together in the dark slick belly of their ship and waited for the end.

Puzzle box, they assured each other. Dead box.

###

Inside the TARDIS, the Doctor slept.

His body was cold and immobile. Barely a breath passed his lips. His fingertips had turned an ashy blue. There were dark purple marks underneath his eyes and charcoal hollows under his pale cheeks. He was an unconscious man in the extremity of exhaustion, and very near death.

Around him the time-ship was still. No bronze glow, no happy hum of circuits. The air was stagnant and dry.

But a person is not like a string of lights. Closing one thing down does not mean everything else turns off. Ears hear, even if there is no one listening; lungs breathe; hearts beat; even the brain shuts down in sections.

A tiny part of the Doctor's mind heard the Gorgorans whispering one of his names.

A tiny part of him felt their anxiety.

When they declared the box dead and harmless, a tiny part of him heard that, too.

And though the Doctor was beyond caring and beyond beyond caring, some things are pure instinct. His mouth twitched, just a millimeter, in an expression that might have been a smile.


	2. Amy Williams dreamt of home

Amy Williams dreamt of home.

She's seven years old and floating in the sky. Her copper hair curls around her little-girl's face. The Doctor holds her hand so she won't fly away, but she isn't afraid. Far from it. She giggles.

Behind her, just beyond the tips of her black Mary Janes, is a crack. Golden light spills from it and warms her feet.

'Don't look now, Amelia,' says the Doctor. He's inside the TARDIS, gripping her little fingers as she drifts just beyond the blue door. He's teasing her. "But there's something back there."

She knows. "It's fine," she says, wiggling her arms and legs. "I'm not _scared_."

Rory—grown-up Rory—stands behind the Doctor with his arms crossed, looking very worried.

"It's just a game," Amelia tells him. It doesn't bother her that Rory is so much older than she. "I'm perfectly safe. You can let go, Doctor."

"Are you sure?" says the Doctor.

"'Course I'm sure," says Amelia. "Don't be stupid."

The Doctor lets go of her hand. She tumbles toward the void, feeling just like she's tumbling into bed. Rory takes a step forward, but the Doctor stops him.

The Doctor watches the little girl fall away, nothing in his face but scholarly interest.

Amelia waves. "Bye-bye, Rory. Bye-bye."

###

Amy woke breathless and disoriented. Her face was wet and her head hurt. Her mouth was dry and tasted bitter. She sat up and banged her head on the ceiling. After that she moved a bit more carefully.

River sat beside her, writing in her diary. "Good morning," she said, without looking up. "I was just about to wake you."

"Morning?" said Amy.

River shrugged. "Could be." She signed the book with a flourish and tucked it back into her small bag.

"I had the oddest dream," Amy yawned. She was about to say _I was home_, but that didn't make any sense. She had never been in the TARDIS as a child, and anyway, her home was a three-storey Addison in Leadworth. It might have been worth telling to her husband or the Doctor, but she was still shy with River.

She swiped her eyes with a hand. Her fingertips came back wet and cool. She frowned. "Was I crying?" She shook her head and rubbed the back of her neck. "Oh, I shouldn't have slept at all—how could I sleep?"

"You were exhausted," said River. "Here; you need to eat something." She handed Amy something the size and shape of a chocolate bar. Amy tore the wrapper open and bit into it.

"Yuck," she said a moment later. "What is that?" It tasted like cardboard.

"It's food."

After the mad rush to get up into the administrative offices, their journey had slowed. The passages were narrower but there were also many dead ends and wrong turnings. Every way looked the same. Even the offices were all the same—all empty, except for the one River had rescued them from yesterday. That one was still dark, though they could see the gleaming eyes of the faux warden.

When they began to worry that they were traveling in circles, Amy used her TARDIS key to scratch marks on the walls at intersections. That worked fine till they started passing their own marks. Frequently they were obliged to go left in order to make a right turn, or down in order to regain their upward path. Even River began to reconsider their previous course up the outside wall; that was dangerous, it was at least direct. After what felt like hours of snail's progress, River had suggested a short break. Driven to exhaustion, her mind reeling through corridors real and imaginary, Amy had promptly curled up and slept like a child.

"Are you ready to go?" said River. Their conversation—normally quick and witty—had dropped to single syllables, all of them related to the task at hand.

"In a minute," said Amy. She nibbled gingerly at the protein bar. "What's wrong with the air?" It was warmer than it had been when Amy fell asleep, and the sounds of the storm outside seemed louder. Condensation was beginning to collect on the walls. Amy imagined that she heard rain ticking along the outside of the tunnels, though they were deep within the building and that was plainly impossible.

"The compressors cycled down. Just a moment ago," said River. She swept her long curls behind her head and tied them back. "It's normal—" she assured Amy. She seemed to start in on an explanation, and then, finding it either too pedantic or too frightening, she changed her mind. "They should be back on straight away."

Amy followed River out of the shaft where they had stopped to rest. At the intersection she used her key to scratch an arrow, then the letters DE, which stood for 'dead end.' She added another arrow to indicate the way they had gone. It made a terrific, ear-splitting noise, but they could see no alternative; River's pen did not make a dark enough mark. They had no other way to leave a trail. They could only hope it did not attract the attention of the motorcycle cops. So far all the passages seemed abandoned, and Amy theorized that the advance guard had all gone to attend the landing of the Gorgoran force proper. Whoever they were. Whatever they wanted.

Amy supposed she would find out soon enough.

The two women helped each other up short passages and endured the heat and the damp. They spoke only when necessary. When the compressors failed to restart at the appropriate time, River said nothing and Amy didn't ask.

It was a different experience of adventure for Amy. When the Doctor was with her it all seemed sort of thrilling and new and brilliant. The danger was real enough, but she had rarely felt that she was in serious trouble. She trusted her Doctor with the perfect trust of a child, and he had never let her down. Now he had to trust Amy and River, and it was all down to hard work and whatever clever tricks they could work alone.

It was an odd sort of patter on the other side of the shaft. Amy supposed it must be rain, but it sounded almost like... legs. Little legs running or hopping down the walls.

They took another turn, and Amy marked it with her arrow code.

When she was done, River held up a hand. _"Wait!"_

Without being told, Amy sat very still, and they both listened.

"Nothing," said River. Then, after a moment's silent progress: "We need to get out of this maze. I'm going perfectly mad."

###

Behind them, down a little shaft marked DE, the glass spiders flooded through an exhaust vent the size of a coaster. Snick, snick, snick, their little legs went, like the sound of rain on a tin roof.

They followed the heat-trail left by two anxious humans on the move.


	3. Your Gorgorans, they're makers

"...now, your Gorgorans," said Patrick Belkin. "They're makers, see? Like the Lantari. Only, you know, without souls and art and spiritualism. But I'm you know all about that."

"Spiritualism?" said Rory rubbing his eyes.

"The Lantari. Right up your street, they are, sir. Huge fans of the Time Lords. Same sort of people." The young identity thief looked sharply at his companion. "I bet you've visited them dozens of times."

Rory was oblivious. "Right. Dozens."

"Anyway, the Gorgorans can manipulate atoms. Make all sorts of things, right out of dust. All sorts. Some of them not so lovely. Fortunately they're fairly low on the abstract reasoning scale."

"Brilliant," said Rory.

"No, _not_ brilliant," Patrick sighed. He pointed at his temple. "Rubbish. Are you even listening to me?"

"Avidly."

"You have to wonder how something like them evolved. Though _you _probably know, don't you, sir? Time traveling and so on..."

Patrick seemed to be constitutionally incapable of silence. During their walk he had expounded on identity theft, counterfeiting, security systems, computers and so on. It had all seemed terribly complex and obscure to Rory, but Patrick kept prodding him to respond. Their pace had slowed appropriately. If Rory had been firing on all four cylinders he might have noticed how expertly Patrick steered him away from the other prisoners. The tech monopolized Rory's time and attention. It was easy for a clever person to see how it was done. The next step was to begin to wonder why.

But Rory was exhausted, and at the same time had begun to feel very unwell indeed. On the bright side, they had left the ventilation shafts behind them; finding the lower floors unguarded, they had decided to make as much of the journey as possible in the hallways. Or someone had decided, anyway. On the dim side, the extra air and headroom was no substitute for sleep, and they kept a hard pace. When they came to a door, Rory was obliged to blast it open with the Doctor's sonic screwdriver. Each time he used it, it got hotter in his hand, and it stayed that way for longer.

He was doing something wrong, but didn't know what it was.

He was hungry, and desperately worried for Amy, and frightened, and lonely, and his head was bothering him. Not really aching. More like, in overdrive. Stormcage Prison reminded him very much of the stone chamber that held the Pandorica box for so many years. But there was no Pandorica. Except there had been. Except there hadn't been. Except there would be. Ugh. He'd had the same strange feeling meeting River—recognizing her but _not_ recognizing her, both feelings strong and certain. Now he was remembering and forgetting all at once, and the sheer _weight_ of it—

And there was no Amy to occupy him, and no Doctor to tell him that it was just one of those things that happened to people. Moreover, he had to work to hide all of these concerns from the others. When he should have been wondering about Patrick Belkin, instead he was wondering what horrible meltdown the Doctor and the TARDIS had been shielding him from, all these months.

He heard a piteous noise behind him. A young woman's surprised cry. As if she'd stepped on a pin.

Patrick froze mid-word. Rory turned slowly, as if in a dream.

The people at the back of the line scattered, clutching the hands of friends or lovers. All but one, a woman—almost a girl—that Rory had noticed earlier. She was small and young and attractive. Why were they running away from her?

Rory felt like a drunk in a car accident. Everything was moving so slowly and so quickly, all at once. _Work, work_, _work,_ he prodded himself. He shook his head and blinked ferociously, trying to wake himself up. _What's the matter with you?_

She was screaming. Tears ran down her face. The others kept running. Rory and Patrick were pushed into the wall.

At first Rory though she was standing in a pool of clear water. Then he realize she was surrounded by tiny shapes, like beads of glass. They swarmed round her feet and ankles, up her legs. They were hurting her, though Rory couldn't see how.

"Help me!" screamed the girl. "Oh, God, _help me_!"

The swarm streamed around her and headed toward the other prisoners.

Rory pushed himself off the wall and ran toward the girl, sonic screwdriver in hand.

Patrick grabbed his wrist with a hot hand. "_Leave her_," he hissed.

"Piss off," said Rory. He twisted his arm.

"There's nothing you can do."

The things were up to her waist now. Her face was twisted in horror, her screams loud and inarticulate and constant. And horrific. Rory could see what they were doing now: each of their many legs was tipped with a sharp claw. They were cutting her. One couldn't do very much damage at all, but there were hundreds of them, thousands. Wading into them would be no better than suicide. _Not_ wading into them was no better than murder.

"Don't think," said Patrick. His voice warbled. He was shaking. "Forget her. Help the rest of us."

The girl fell to her knees. The things crawled over her face, her eyes.

If Amy had seen Rory in that moment, she wouldn't have recognized him. This was a Rory from another time. The centurion.

_There's nothing you can do. _He turned his face from the girl to others. "GET BACK!" he bellowed. "_Move_!" He powered through the group to another ventilation grate near the floor. He fingered the sonic screwdriver. But he couldn't blow this door up. He'd need it in a moment. He licked his fingertips and tried to dig under the screws with his nails.

The girl's screams were now soft whimpers and moans, muffled under the weight of the glass swarm.

_Don't think about it._

He got one screw off. He barely noticed the sharp edges of the grate tugging on his fingertips and knuckles.

Just four screws. No time.

Plenty of time. He loosened another.

_That could've been Amy_.

"Doctor!" said the gathered prisoners. "Doctor, _please._"

The third was loose and almost fell into his open hand.

The swarm was almost upon them. The girl was silent, but not dead. Rory could hear her moving. Writhing.

-_could've been Amy back there._

The fourth screw. He twisted it off and dropped it into his bloody palm. He tore open the grate with a fierce hand.

"GET IN NOW!" he said.

The voice of God could not have compelled them to move faster. There was only room for one at a time, but the group moved as if they had been rehearsed. They dove through feet first, moved out of the way, pulled the next one through. Patrick was the last. By the time he had hefted himself through, the gathering swarm was almost at Rory's feet. But he felt no fear, no weariness, no soft-headed confusion. In fact, he felt nothing at all. He glared at them like they were cockroaches.

The screwdriver had leapt into his hand and began to whir of its own accord. It almost burnt his fingers. He pointed it at the floor and pressed the button. If he was using it the wrong way—well, that was _fine_.

A wave of energy shattered the glass creatures where they stood. Back and back and back it spread. The tile floor underneath them cracked. The heat of the screwdriver singed Rory's fingertips, but he would not have dropped it now for anything.

He stood very still for just a moment, breathless. Heard a little ticking sound like raindrops. More of them were coming.

He jumped into the dark and pulled the grate shut behind him.


	4. It wasn't rain

It wasn't rain.

The sound of something scuttling behind Amy and River—it wasn't rain at all. It was something much worse. Amy knew it, and she had known it for a long time. She remarked as such to River.

"I know," said River, peering through the slats of a grate.

"Have you got a plan?"

"Yes." River chewed her lip. "Well."

"What is it?"

"Don't let it get us," said River.

"Oh."

"It's an evolving plan," River explained. "Through here," she said, pointing. "Go on ahead of me; I'll be right behind."

They were very close to the top now. Though the tunnels had gotten increasingly narrow, requiring Amy and River to squeeze through tiny passages like spelunkers, they felt the light-headedness accompanied with reaching a great height. River knew they must be close to the TARDIS. There simply weren't many other places the Gorgorans could have taken it. The top floor of the prison was taken up by a large observation deck. There was a grate every few feet, and now River had to stop and look through each one for any sign of their salvation. If salvation it was going to be.

Meanwhile they were in bad shape, and Amy would count them lucky if they made it out of the ventilation system at all. The air was hot and stagnant. Amy's hands were damp with sweat, making it more difficult to gain purchase on the slick metal. She was taking quick shallow breaths and wasn't getting enough air. Their upward progress had almost halted. And that _sound_. Amy could hear it drumming on the outside of the ducts. If she put a hand on the wall, she could feel it vibrating the metal. In the last few minutes it had gotten much louder, so that Amy and River had to shout to hear each other.

Amy had to believe that the noise was coming back up through the system. That noise was not on the outside anymore. It was _in here with them_. It was terrible knowing that something was coming up behind you but not knowing what it was or when it would manifest. The only smart thing was to keep moving away from it, but Amy felt her skin crawl every time she turned away from the sound.

When River grabbed her ankle, Amy swallowed a scream.

"_Look_," said River, as softly as she could.

With some banging and cursing, Amy turned so that they were both gathered around a vent. Yellow light illuminated their faces. Amy looked out—and gasped.

Just beyond the vent was a very large room. It was the shape of a doughnut. Amy and River were on the outside of the doughnut, hiding in the walls. The donut hole was open—presumably, all the way to the floor. Between the wall and the hole was a flat deck about twenty feet wide. Not far from Amy and River, near the perilous edge, was the TARDIS. Amy could see two armed "motorcycle cops." Probably there were two more on the other side. Amy put a palm against the cold grate, and River reached up to stop her. River shook her head, but there was no need. They couldn't get through this way. They'd be caught immediately. Maybe killed.

River put a finger to her lips, then pointed up. Amy leaned back and looked as high as she could. The room had no roof. Bits of the ceiling lay in fragments on the floor. Overhead, a pale mass seethed, plugging the top like a rubber bung. It was alive and moving. Flesh-like it was, but also segmented like the underside of an insect.

_The Gorgoran ship, _Amy mouthed.

River nodded, then gave Amy a gentle push, urgency in her face. They needed to keep moving. The rushing and ticking behind them were as loud as ever. Amy turned round and began to crawl again, the urge to speed up conflicting with the need to be as silent as possible.

Another five minutes of painful effort, and they came to another vent. This time Amy got on her knees, crouching low so that River could edge in next to her. This vantage point was hardly more promising. From here they could see the front doors of the TARDIS, its lights as dark as Amy had ever seen them. They were no closer to it. Amy could spot more guards from this direction. They were arranged to protect the TARDIS, and though they were no more alive than robots, there was nevertheless and atmosphere of alarm and confusion among them. They were many, and they seemed to be on hair triggers. Amy despaired.

River seemed heartened, though. She cupped a hand to whisper in Amy's ear.

"Get out your key."

"What?"

"_Just do it._" River took her gun from her side and heated it up.

Amy lifted her TARDIS key over her head and held it in her palm. Its weight was warm and familiar in her hand. River grabbed it, then made Amy hold it between her index finger and thumb, like Amy was about to open a lock. Amy did as she was told, but frowned at River. Why was this any better than the other direction?

River placed the bell of her gun against the grate. "It's going to be loud. Don't be afraid. When we get out there, you _run_ for that door. Don't stop till you're inside the TARDIS."

"What are you doing?" said Amy in a harsh whisper.

River held up a finger. "Listen."

"For what—"

River cocked her head. "Do you know what that is?"

The skittering sound was no longer behind them. It was _here_. Amy looked over River's shoulder and saw a river spilling toward them. It seemed to be made up of a bunch of tiny little creatures. They scattered the dim blue and golden lights, savagely beautiful.

River's showed her teeth in a predator's smile. "That's _timing_."

Amy shuddered. Her heart drummed fear through her veins, but River's bright-eyed look rooted Amy where she was. _Don't panic_, she told herself again and again. It will be all right. She gripped the key between her slick fingers.

The swarm was almost upon them. River caught Amy's stare and shook her head.

River mouthed, _wait._

The tiny creatures reached the tips of River's shoes. River winced and set her jaw against the pain. She threw an arm over her eyes and pulled the trigger.

The grate exploded with a tremendous amount of light and noise.

Amy was poised to move, and she threw herself through the tiny opening. She kept close to the floor and clambered left. River was right behind her. River got up at at once, pulled Amy to her feet, and gave her a push. At the same time, she aimed above her head and fired again. There was a hum and another explosion. Slime and goo rained down on them. "GO!" River shouted, pointing the barrel of her gun toward the TARDIS doors.

The glass spiders spilled out of the grate behind them. Amy kept the TARDIS key tight between her fingers and ran toward the door, her eyes on the tiny keyhole. If this was going to work, Amy needed aim as perfect as River's, and she needed to shift as fast as the Doctor ever had.

The spiders were not built to think, nor to determine friends and enemies. They sought only heat and fear, and their only motivation was to rip and tear; they did not even eat. The Gorgorans could make things out of air, but they made nothing that lived in a proper sense. River knew this instinctively and was now poised to turn it to her advantage. The spiders swarmed over the patrolling guards and tore them apart. The guards did not scream, as people might. They had no mouths. They fired into the swarm and when it got to be too much, they staggered.

Without stopping, River fired a few well-aimed bolts at the guards around the TARDIS, and in turn they concentrated their fire on her. Charges zinged by as River ran after Amy, the spiders at their heels like an invading army.

Amy didn't stop when she reached the TARDIS door. She slammed the key into the lock and twisted it and slammed the door open. When she came through—the walls of the time machine opening around her like a dream—she whirled. "River!" she shouted.

River ran toward her, firing rapidly into the Gorgoran ship as she ran. The spiders pooled around her feet. They reached the threshold at the same moment. River tripped on the edge and stumbled inside. Amy slammed the door behind them.

A few spiders skittered around their feet. Amy moved to stomp them, and River, who had fallen to the floor, crushed one with the butt of her gun. Both of them were dreadfully aware that the evil little things might be shredding _them_ right now, if the plan had gone even slightly wrong. But it was no matter; once the TARDIS doors were closed, the Gorgorans' weapons were useless. The spiders disintegrated into their elements, and Amy ground dust and sand under her heels.

They heard scratching and thumping on the box outside, but in here they were safe as turtles in a shell.

"Okay." Amy leaned against the door. "Okay." She swallowed a few times and gave the TARDIS a weak smile. "Now what?"

River didn't answer. She couldn't. She had followed Amy's gaze up to the glass scaffolding, where the Doctor still laid, limp as a sleeping child, hardly breathing at all.


	5. Pale and ferocious

Pale and ferocious, muttering softly to herself, River propelled herself up the stairs and knelt at the Doctor's side. She took his pulse at the wrist, then swept her hair back and pressed her ear to his chest, first one side, then the other. Finally she dropped his limp arm, settled back on her heels and proceeded to damn the unconscious Time Lord in a tone that betrayed a combination of exasperation, disgust and relief.

"Oh, of all the bloody feeble-minded schemes I've ever heard... what were you _thinking_? Honestly, I ought to have _you_ locked up—"

"I'm sorry," said Amy, who had finally caught her breath. "But you know what's wrong with him?"

"Yes; he's an idiot." She looked over her shoulder at Amy and softened her tone. "If you mean more specifically: it's hom sleep."

Amy pushed herself off the door and crept up the stairs. "REM sleep?"

"H-O-M," River spelled. "Hypnotic O-wave Modified..." She shook her head. "It's a kind of self-hypnosis. It's not particularly special; anybody can learn how to do it. Kids learn it in school. But you're not supposed to just..."

"_He did this to himself_?" Amy was horrified.

"Well of course he did it to himself," said River, a bit impatiently. "What could get at _him_ from inside the TARDIS? Oh, don't look like that, Amy. I'm sure he had a good reason."

"You just said he was an idiot."

"Yes, well," River acknowledged. She looked at the Doctor a bit more tenderly and took his hand in hers. "Things like that-" River pointed out the door. "They don't have proper senses. No eyes and ears, no sense of touch. They feel energy. Psychic energy, life energy, whatever." She paused to make sure Amy was following. "They feel it and they crave it. There's not a lot of ways to hide from something like that. It can see through walls. If it's after you, it will keep coming forever."

Amy sat down next to River. "And if you're after it," she said, following the thought process, "you can't exactly sneak up on it. Especially if you've got life energy like the Doctor's. I bet he looks like a supernova to them. I bet they can't look away."

"Top marks," said River. "And maybe that was the plan. HOM sleep... it's a bit like shutting yourself off. You bury all that energy so deep that..."

"That Gorgorans and their mates can't see you," Amy finished. "But that's brilliant!"

"Yeah," said River. "Brilliant." Her face darkened. "Except it's dangerous and you're only supposed to do it for, what, twenty minutes at a time. How long has he been like this? A day? I've never heard of anybody doing it for more than an hour. She died, by the way."

Amy closed her eyes. It was too much. She kept zinging from hope to terror like a billiards ball falling into different pockets. She wished Rory was here.

"It's a bottomless pit," River continued. "You're using your own life energy to suppress your life energy. The longer you sleep, the deeper you go."

"Isn't there anything we can do?"

"I've been doing it," said River, "this whole time. Now be quiet. If you want to help, you can go see about that noise."

"What—" Then Amy heard it. The skittering of the glass spiders had stopped, as well as the banging and beaming noises of guns. In their place was a soft, intermittent thumping, followed by a scrape that shook the TARDIS on her footing. Amy was hardly worried, as it was nothing that could get them in here. She looked at River for a moment; the other woman had assumed a preoccupied attitude, and her eyes were fixed on the Doctor's face. Amy wondered what was going through River's head. She was unlikely to find out until it was over, however, so after a moment she stretched some of the aches and anxieties from her limbs, got up, and went over to the control panel. She found the switches that controlled the observation window and toggled them.

Nothing happened. The window stayed blank. Amy shook her head and patted the console affectionately. It seemed like the Doctor wasn't the only thing in HOM sleep.

_Thump. Scrape_.

The thumping was on the door. It came at intervals of four or five seconds. The scraping noise was the sound of the TARDIS dragging along the prison floor. Amy swept her hair behind her left ear and pressed it to the door.

_Thump. _It hammered against her face, not really hurting. _Scrape_.

"But you _can't_ get in," said Amy.

To her left, the observation window suddenly flickered to life, projecting a watery, greyscale image of the room outside. It had been slow to respond and the quality was lousy, but it was video and Amy wasn't inclined to complain. She hopped back onto the scaffolding to get a better look and saw—nothing.

It was an empty room. The "motorcycle cops" and the glass spiders had all disappeared, ground back into dust or taken up into the Gorgoran ship, which Amy couldn't see from this vantage point. There was nothing out there big enough to knock on the TARDIS's door. Nevertheless the air stirred, and a moment later there was a solid thump on the door, and a moment later the blue box moved half an inch. Amy thought about what River had said about the Gorgorans and energy. Could they be using that energy to push against the TARDIS? Why?

Amy opened her mouth to ask.

"Shut up," said River, her voice strained.

Okay then. Amy went back to the control panel and toggled the camera around the room. Nothing. Nothing. Empty room.

_Thump-scrape._

Amy chewed her lip, then thought of something. She widened the beam, turned the viewer completely round—and looked down into a whole new category and classification of emptiness. This was the inside of the round room. It dropped down endlessly, as far as Amy could see. And half-inch by half-inch, the Gorgorans were pushing the TARDIS into it.

"Oh," said Amy. She swallowed. "Right." A few seconds later she added, "Blimey."

She didn't know what would happen if the crippled TARDIS fell over the side. The Doctor said the police box and the timeship were in two different dimensions. If the box smashed on the floor of the prison, they might be trapped inside forever. Or they might just be crushed, just like they would be if they'd been stuck in a broken elevator. Certainly abuse on the outside was transferred inside; each thump made the whole box shudder.

"River," said Amy.

"Amy, _please_," said River. "I'm trying to fix this, and I'm not exactly a doc—"

"Yeah. Um. You might want to work a little faster."

"What?"

Several things happened at once. The console came to life under Amy's hands. The lights came up, buttons began to blink and flicker. Outside, the Gorgorans missed their run-up. There were no more thumps on the TARDIS door.

The Doctor took in a terrific gasp of air and started coughing violently.

There was a long moment of perfect stillness. The blue box seemed balanced on the edge of the world.

"Oy, that's River Song," croaked the Doctor between desperate wheezes. He considered this, cocked his head and glared. "Do you... _mind?_" He wiped his weeping eyes. "Some of us..." he gasped, "are trying to _sleep _around here."

River clutched his hand.

_Thump_—

The TARDIS went over the edge.


	6. Panic

Panic. Sheer panic.

If human ears could have heard the eyeless, mouthless Gorgorans, they would have heard screams and gasps. There was no debate, no disquiet. Only action. When Amy and River had their revenge, and the blue box came to brilliant and unexpected life, they flung it away in the darkest of horrors.

Yet this was not right either! Their orders were to destroy, not to flee!

Something fell from the Gorgoran ship. It was not an animal. It was a half-formed thing, a seething mass of pale flesh. But _here_ there was a jaw, and _here_ a leg. Here a claw. It was angry and afraid. It saw the box spill over the edge. It pursued with the unified and mindless spirit of its makers.

It leapt into the air, spitting and yowling its unbreakable contract.

###

Inside the TARDIS, another kind of panic.

Lights flashed on and off. Things beeped. The three occupants were thrown violently against each other. The Doctor pushed River brusquely away from him—she hit a wall and winced—and threw himself toward the control panel. He hooked his wrist over a brass handle to steady himself. He hit buttons and flipped switches, cold fingers fumbling, still blurry from his bizarre sleep.

Amy had hooked her arm around the base of a chair and covered her head. She saw the Doctor struggling, shaking his limp hands as if he could jolt some life back into them. She wondered if he was terribly damaged.

He threw a loose smile over his shoulder. "Quite all right," he said, sounding unsure. "Ow. Hem. Fine. A nice apple would set me to rights; have we got any—"

"Oh my God," said River, clinging to a railing.

"_River?" _said the Doctor, as if surprised to find her there.

Amy sighed. _Okay_, she thought, _this time we're definitely going to die_. She couldn't see the ground rushing up, but she felt it.

She didn't close her eyes. She hugged her anchor and said, quite calmly, "Doctor—"

"What's that, Amy?" The Doctor's eyebrows shot up. "Oh! Right."

He knocked a line of buttons with stiff knuckles.

Less than a second before the box hit the ground, it vanished.

###

The Gorgoran creature hit the ground and splattered into a million tiny objects. It re-formed like a nightmare. It couldn't see the box anymore, but it didn't feel anger or frustration. Instead it looked for the next-nearest thing and found it. Its new target was standing in a sea of spiders; it was nearing the disorienting energy-fields of the crank-ion energy core; and it was like nothing the Gorgorans had seen before. The blinding and creative energy of the Time Lords they knew well. This was not that. This was a blackness, a silence, an un-thing.

But it was the size and shape of a Time Lord—a massive size, a massive shape—and so must either be consumed or destroyed. It was the energy they needed, craved and feared.

The Gorgoran hunter stretched and slunk into the shadows, scenting the air with its inner snout.

###

"_Keep going!_"

Rory's headache was a bright rock, burning between his eyes. He dripped with sweat. He did not think of Amy. His mind was on two distinct and conflicting tracks: one in which his many years protecting the Pandorica had never happened, and one in which he had no identity stronger than guardian.

Pursued by a flood of glass spiders, he and Patrick Belkin had driven the rest of the prisoners at a dead run toward the energy core. When the spiders drew too close, Rory would strike at them with the sonic screwdriver. He launched vicious bolts that made him weaker and stronger, all at once. He _seethed_ at the death of that girl, at the risk they had all been placed in for reasons he didn't even understand. Patrick—technologist and young supporter of the peerage—was his guide. He seemed to know where to turn, when to jump. When Rory forgot to look ahead of him, Patrick Belkin grabbed Rory's collar and pulled him away from a deadly drop.

Rory blinked. He looked at Patrick in shock.

Patrick thrust a finger at the advancing swarm. "Over there, sir."

Rory fired the screwdriver again, the incident utterly forgotten.

He burned through a lock. The group burst through a service door and into a huge, dimly-lit room. There was a turbine in its center, many storeys high, and churning in a large cylinder of neon water.

"Up against it," Rory ordered. "Get as close as you can."

He needn't have spent himself. The ragged and exhausted group of prisoners jostled each other to get close to the reactor. Some of the quicker ones scrambled up on its supports, clinging like frogs near the container.

"Any second," said Patrick.

They both looked at the door through which they had come. It was open. In fact, it was broken. There was no barrier.

Rory felt no fear. All that was inside him was a bright, hot light.

The tiny machine in his hand was like another limb. Fused in his grip. "If they get close," he called, "crush them with your feet."

That skittering sound. The energy from the reactor was supposed to confuse them. That's what River had said. Or had she said that? In his throbbing, aching ears, Rory heard the screams of the girl they had taken, except it was his wife's voice that he heard.

Jaw set, he extended his arm like he held a gun.

Nothing came. He could see the glint of the spiders in the doorway and the dark shaft beyond, but they did not breach the room. For a moment, they froze, a short distance from Rory's trainers, within range of the sonic screwdriver's cutting blasts. Then they seemed to bow, to settle on their thin glass legs.

At first Rory though they had been halted by proximity to the reactor. He chewed his lip. At Rory's right shoulder, Patrick Belkin's eyes flickered from Rory to the dark doorway. Patrick took a moment to make a decision—it was a delicate matter—then rested a light hand on Rory's bare wrist. A gesture that said, _take it easy_. Rory flinched as if Patrick had stabbed him. The tech lifted his hand from Rory's wrist and cocked a head at the door.

Something... something there...

The spiders crunched under its huge paws and it slunk out of the dark.

Behind Rory and Patrick: a chorus of horrified gasps and cries. In front of them: a beast, formed out of daubs of flesh-toned children's clay, by someone who understood the viciousness of a big cat but had never, ever seen one. It was big enough to kill everyone in the room, and there was nothing in its movements to suggest anything known. No face. No maw.

"What is that?" said Rory softly.

Patrick said nothing, though he knew.

The thing came closer to Rory, as if to scent him. It seemed... not afraid, but hesitant, careful.

"_What is it?" _There was strength in Rory's voice, but also a loose, warbling note. He lifted the screwdriver.

Patrick barely moved his lips. "Don't."

It _changed. _Its shifting flesh changed into a different and less recognisable form. It grew as tall as Rory and as lean, almost human-shaped. It inched toward him. Rory had never seen a Gorgoran before, but he knew at once that he was looking at a deathly enemy, and not a general one. _His_ enemy. It stirred a revulsion in him that was more powerful than hate.

In the center of the Gorgoran, a hollow formed, surrounded by fleshy tissue. It was a mouth. A human mouth. No eyes or nose, but a mouth and a throat.

The noise it made was dreadful, grim and distorted. There was a weight to that sound, an undertone that pressed Rory toward the ground and made him nauseous. But he understood it well enough. It was the question that had been on his own lips, moments ago.

With a voice that it was never meant to have, with an intensity that belied its own bewilderment, it croaked, "WHO-ARE-YOU?"

The Gorgorans aren't talkers. They're makers and takers. They communicate with each other through telepathy and a dark energy for which there are no human words. They don't have an identity. The creature spoke with a nearly-human voice, but it _asked_ with the full force of its strength. It was the most terrifying moment of Rory's life. In one sick moment, he felt cracked open like an egg. He could no longer remember his own name.

His eyes filled with tears.

"He's called Rory Williams," said a strong, familiar voice. "He's a human being. And I wouldn't mess with _him_ if I were you."

Rory didn't dare move. He would die if he blinked. But in the periphery of his vision, he saw a raggedy man in a tweed suit, leaning drunkenly on River Song. And walking just behind them... Amy. 

_Oh, Amy_._ Run away._

If Rory had had a heart attack, right there, it would not have surprised him in the least.

"Hello, Rory," said the Doctor coolly. "Fancy an apple?"


	7. Three of them

The three of them had come out of a maintenance closet, where the TARDIS nested like a Russian doll. The Doctor looked very ill, and he walked like an old man, but his eyes were clear.

Amy was torn between conflicting emotions. When she'd seen Rory facing off with the Gorgoran, she was filled with pride. Her husband. She wanted to run to him. Then she saw the deep pain and confusion on his face, and _needed _to go to him.

The Doctor had stopped her with a word.

"_Look_ at him," said Amy through gritted teeth.

"I'll fix it."

"Yeah? Have you seen _yourself_ lately?"

"Please," the Doctor whispered. "I promise, nothing will happen to him if you just _stay here._"

The Gorgoran's terrible voice overcame them all. Amy staggered. River put a hand to her mouth. Members of the group of prisoners winced or cried out.

"WHO-ARE-YOU?"

Rory and the Doctor were the only people who didn't turn away. Doctor detached himself from River and crossed his arms, impassive. His promise was already broken, and he knew it. Aside from what had _already_ happened to Rory, it was obvious that the question devastated him. His shoulders sank. Terror and disgust were written in every line of his body. River had to hold Amy back.

"He's called Rory Williams," said the Doctor. He spared one glance for Amy, who went still. The Doctor returned his attention to the tableau in front of them. "And I wouldn't mess with _him _if I were you."

Silence. Rory did not exactly buck up, but his panic seemed to have frozen at a high-water mark. He stood with his feet planted apart, his hand raised in front of him, pointing the Doctor's sonic screwdriver at the Gorgoran's center mass. He seemed mesmerised.

Amy could not see the Doctor's face, and almost all of her attention consumed by her husband's peril, but she saw Patrick Belkin just over Rory's shoulder. He stared. In the corner of her eye, Amy thought she saw the Doctor nod. Patrick stepped back, melting into the crowd of prisoners.

The Doctor's next words were only for Rory. Not to impress or surprise or confuse the Gorgoran. "Hello, Rory," he said. "Fancy an apple?"

It was like a shibboleth. Who would say something like that, at a time like this? Only the Doctor, and only at the peak of his extraordinary confidence. The Doctor came forward, steadier with every step. He walked into the green glow from the reactor, making a perfect right triangle between himself, Rory and the Gorgoran.

The creature's mouth was absorbed back into itself.

It reappeared, facing the Doctor. It opened.

"HA-HA-HA-HA-" The laughter of something that understood what laughter _meant_, but not how it was supposed to sound. At first the horrible pressure of it was almost too much for Amy to bear, but then something shifted, and it was just a nasty noise. The Doctor probably. Protecting them as always.

"I'm sorry," said the Doctor nastily. "Did I say something funny?"

"He is no human," hissed the Gorgoran. "We could drink his energy for a million million years."

The Doctor said, "_Try it__."_

"What could _you_ do to save him, Karshtakavaar? Look at him. _Look_ at him."

The Doctor seemed to take the thing's advice. He stared at Rory for a long time. What did he see? Amy wondered. A friend? A child? The only other sure thing Amy had in the universe? None of those things.

Rory took no notice of them.

"You're wrong," said the Doctor. "He's nobody."

"We know his name."

"It's Rory," said the Doctor. "Rory Williams."

"His true name."

"I'll destroy you," said the Doctor.

The thing said, "You think we fear you, Karshtakavaar? With _him_ in the room?"

The Doctor stopped talking to it. He seemed to forget it was there. "Rory," he said. "Don't listen to it. I know it's speaking to you. I can't stop it. But it's lying."

The Gorgoran's flesh rippled.

"_Rory_," said the Doctor. "Pay attention."

Rory tore his gaze from the changing Gorgoran. He did not look at the Doctor. He found Amy in the shadows.

Her face was wet. "Rory," she said. "Come here."

Mouths rose from the Gorgoran's slick body. Dozens of mouths. Amy realized with disgust where it had gotten the pattern. It had copied the only human it had ever spoken with. That was Rory's smile on its lips. If she'd had the time, she would have thrown up.

"Rory! Come away."

Moving simultaneously, the many lips drew back in the first syllable of a word. "ISH—"

Silence.

It was as if Amy had gone deaf. The silence seemed to break the Gorgoran's spell, which meant it was not just her ears that couldn't hear. It was her mind. The Doctor met her eyes and she knew he had done it. His face was all apologies, tinged with worry.

A lot of things happened at once. River let Amy slip out of her grip. The Doctor took long strides toward the Gorgoran, arm outstretched. It disintegrated before he could touch it.

Rory dropped the sonic screwdriver, staggered backwards, his eyes going wild and panicky, until his wife ran into him at full speed. Then he did the most natural thing in the world. He held her close, laid his head on her shoulder, breathed deeply and fell asleep.

The screwdriver hit the floor in a silence so profound that thought itself could not be heard.


	8. Rory

Rory woke with a gasp.

He pushed Amy toward the reactor core, and _whirled_, ready to take the thing on with his bare hands if he must.

"Hey!"

"Get out of here," he told her. "_Run._"

"Hey." She rested a hand on his arm. "It's _over_, alright? Which y' would know, if you hadn't fallen on me like a sack of potatoes." She got her balance and adjusted her clothes. "What have they been feeding you, anyway? If it's those protein bars, it's no wonder you gained ten pounds." She looked him over, taking in his cuts and bruises, and then kissed him. She was very warm. He was very cold, but got a bit warmer as they went on. "Hi."

"Hi."

They were still in the reactor room; Rory had only dozed for a few moments. He was deeply disappointed. He wanted to be tucked up in hospital somewhere with Amy telling him it had been a week. Apparently that only happened in the movies. Out here in the universe, at the the end of the dark days, you were still wet and cold and sick at heart, _and_ you had to do the washing-up. Where the Gorgoran had stood there was a thick pool of white ooze and grainy mud, and it stank like dead frogs.

The Doctor probed the ectoplasm with the tip of his brown Oxford, then bent and pinched a bit it between his fingertips. He rolled it between his thumb and forefingers for a moment. He frowned and touched his index finger thoughtfully to his tongue.

Amy made a face. "Ew."

"Is it dead?" In Rory's opinion, anything that smelled like _that_ couldn't come back to life, but you never knew.

The Doctor looked up as if surprised that the world was still here. He shrugged. "It was never really alive in the first place."

"What about the others?" said Amy. "The Gorgoran ship?"

"When we get up there," said the Doctor. "I think we'll find our friends had pressing business elsewhere. How are you, Rory?"

Rory began to speak, then stopped. It was a difficult question to answer. He was tired, of course; he was almost asleep on his feet. He ached everywhere. His arms and fingertips were scratched up, his knees were bruised, and he had a first-degree burn on his hand where he'd held the sonic screwdriver. His headache had faded to a tiny pressure spot between his eyes. His mind was like bumper cars; he'd run up against something, feel a hard jolt, and take off in another direction. As long as he didn't think too hard or remember too much, he felt all right. Sort of.

"Fine," he said, hesitantly. "You?"

The Doctor still had dark circles under his eyes, his skin was pasty, and he seemed to be limping on both feet. "Capital." The Doctor grinned. "Never better."

"Great," said Rory. "Great." Silence settled between them. Amy looked from one to the other.

Rory looked at his shoes, then back up. "Doctor."

"Yes, Rory."

All of a sudden, Rory was terribly angry. In fact, he felt like he was on the run-up to a really brilliant row. The kind that could last for days. Maybe the rest of his life. He pointed at the mud slick in the doorway. "_What the fu—"_

_ "_Excuse me, Doctor!"

Rory and the Doctor both turned. They realised that they weren't holding a closed-doors session. The entire prisoner group was staring at them, wide-eyed. The woman who'd spoken stood near the front. She was small but hard-looking, with high cheekbones, coffee-coloured skin, and deep brown eyes. "I'm—Melina Makaar," she said. "Vice..." Her voice wavered, and she cleared her throat. Rory realised she was afraid of him. "Vice president of the prisoners' congress. Please, Doctor. What are we supposed to do now?" She looked straight at Rory.

The real Doctor's eyebrows shot up.

"Um," Rory said. "Heh."

How could they still believe? Rory had trouble seeing it. But to the prisoners, it was Rory who had saved their lives, Rory who had stood between them and the beast. The tweedy academic had just showed up at the end, and he hadn't done anything but talk. Rory pointed a weapon at the enemy, and it had died. Rory's followers looked at him with the innocent trust of children. It was almost too much to bear. Of course, the Doctor got that look _all the time_.

Rory addressed the assembly. "You understand that I can't set you free," he said. "I expect... I expect I'll have to put a call in to the... what. The Shadow Proclamation. _Yes_. River, how long would it take them to get here?"

"A few hours," said River. She stepped up next to Rory, giving the Doctor an apologetic glance as she passed. "Maybe a day."

"'I'll make sure you're not blamed for—all this." He had no idea how he would do that, but it sounded right. He nodded at the spokeswoman. "Melina, wasn't it? Can you get the group together and start heading back up to the cell blocks?"

"Yes, Doctor."

Rory said, "And we'll need a head count. Let's not have any allegations of escape or sabotage."

"I'll handle that," said River. "I know everyone."

"Brilliant. Send anyone who's been hurt to me." Rory was getting into his stride now. Amy squeezed his hand. "We should make sure the reactor's in good shape. Patrick, can you_—_"

He looked to his left, where Patrick had been this whole time. He wasn't there.

Taking advantage of everyone's distraction, the Doctor picked up the sonic screwdriver and slipped it into his pocket.

Rory searched the group of prisoners and didn't see the tech among them. He cleared his throat. "Where's Patrick? Was he hurt? Has anyone seen him?"

###

A search party was organised, but the Doctor didn't think they'd find anything. The Doctor didn't know Patrick Belkin, but he knew _of_ him. He was well-connected con artist; well known in the seedier parts of this galaxy. There would be no record that he had ever come here. And he would not be found again—unless he wanted to be. While the rest of the group searched for their missing member, the Doctor leaned up against a wall. He folded his arms, closed his eyes, and tried to remember how all his bits worked. It was a dark thing he'd done to himself. He wondered how long it would take to recover.

He felt a tug at his sleeve.

"Beggin' yer parden, mister," said a voice. "But I was told to give ye this."

The Doctor opened his eyes and saw an old man with rheumy eyes and a stained little beard. He wore a powder-blue coverall, with MARGINY stamped on the pocket. He held a rolled paper in his rough hand. The Doctor opened it, tilting it so the prisoner wouldn't see.

The note was written in a fine copperplate hand. _I saved him. Now we're even. -__BELKIN._

Now we're even. The Doctor chewed his lip. He didn't know Patrick, but it was a long old life, wasn't it. Who knew who you'd meet along the way.

"Thanks," said the Doctor, pretending not to notice the old man's intense curiosity.

"Mr. Belkin en't coming back, is he?"

"I doubt it." The Doctor rolled up the note and put it in his inside pocket. "If he does, you ought stay away from him. He's a dangerous man."

The prisoner shrugged. You could tell from that shrug: he'd seen dangerous men come and go, and never been much better or worse for it. "En't we all, mister." He touched his fingers to his forehead like he was touching the brim of a cap. He lowered his head and trudged away.

The Doctor thought about the note, and the Gorgoran, and Rory. The word that the Doctor had silenced, the unspeakable word, was _Ishnahakaar, _and he thought about that, too. He sighed. There was a lot of the story the Doctor knew, but couldn't tell. There was a lot he suspected, but didn't know. And he had a lot to do now. Some of it very hurtful to Amy and Rory, if they ever found out about it, which they wouldn't.

He felt the twin weights of obligation and loneliness settle on him. The only friends who never went away.

"Yeah," he muttered. "Aren't we all."


	9. Bigger on the Inside

And then—as always, in the end—there was tea.

Earl Grey, sweetened and creamed. A whisper of citrus that smelled, to River Song, almost as good as freedom. There were many things that never quite ran out on the TARDIS: life, freedom, privacy, and a nice proper cup of tea. Before leaving the galley, River took a sip and tasted everything that had been denied to her for the last four and a half years. She closed her eyes and permitted herself a moment of relaxation, a loosening of all she had held close for all this time. But only a moment. Behind that wall was a terrain of exhaustion, anxiety, frustration—one that must be navigated, but not today, please. Not for long time yet.

She took two mugs and headed for the control room. Halfway down the steps, she heard the chirrup of the sonic screwdriver, a few notes off-key. On the other side of the deck, the Doctor leaned on a railing, back to River, head bent. River stood and stared. She could hardly be shy with him, as well as they knew each other, but then again, River hadn't spoken to anyone outside of Stormcage in almost eighteen months. And her heart broke for this Doctor. He seemed so young, so different from the others, and so unlikely to ask her for help with any given thing. Yet she could never quite lose the thread; she knew how he took his tea, for example, and how he carried himself when something was on his mind.

After a brief silence, the screwdriver whistled again, this time sounding pitch-perfect. The Doctor aimed it and unlocked the front door, then locked it again. He turned, tucking the screwdriver into his inside pocket. He looked like the man for whom the cliche _death warmed over_ had been invented. He moved over, so the two of them could stand together near the railing, looking out over the brass and copper panels of the TARDIS.

River passed him a mug, which he sniffed.

"It's not poisoned," said River.

He shrugged and took a delicate sip.

"Brilliant," he said a moment later. "I can never get that bloody pot to work."

River balanced her mug on the railing, shifted her balance, and replied, "_Ishnahakaar_."

The Doctor's mug slipped from his hands. On cue, River reached out and caught it, not a drop spilled. She handed it back to him with as light an air of satisfaction as she could manage. Timing was everything. It really was.

The Doctor stared into his tea, a bit put out. If there was one thing he didn't like, it was a predictable ending. "I won't ask," he said. "Mind your own timeline."

"Fine," said River. "I wouldn't have told you anyway." In fact, she knew almost nothing about the word. She had heard only whispers, and those recently. River knew the Doctor on many different timelines, some of them much older than this one, but he had never said a word about this. Either the answers still lay in River's future, or the Doctor had perfectly shielded another piece of his long history. Either way, there was no reason to tell him so. A professed knowledge of each other's future was one of the trump cards in their decades-long battle of wits.

An ember of a smile flickered across the Doctor's lips.

"What are you going to tell Rory and Amy?" said River. The young couple had retreated to their suite, and River didn't expect they'd be seen or heard from for a dozen hours or more. They'd earned their rest and then some.

The Doctor gave her a too-innocent look. His smile faded. "I'm not at all sure what you mean."

"Please," River scoffed. "_Ishnahakaar _isn't a just a word, it's a name, and it isn't just a name, it's a story, and the people who know it are not the people you'd want to meet alone in a dark galaxy. Rory has to know what he's facing."

The Doctor cleared his throat. He looked at his hands when he spoke, avoiding her. "The air," he said, "was very close down there, don't you think?" He propped his elbows on the scaffolding. "Especially near the reactor core. Crank-ion burst, wasn't it? Poor shielding, too. No wonder he felt...confused."

River stared. Of course she knew what he meant, but she couldn't believe it. She couldn't _believe_ it. She took a step away from him.

"I imagine," the Doctor continued, "that after some fresh air and a few days in the sun, it'll all seem like a bad dream."

It was like meeting a perfect stranger, all over again. "You wouldn't."

"Suggest an alternative," said the Doctor.

"It's mind control. It's illegal."

The Doctor scoffed. "So's killing people, but that didn't seem to stop..."

"It's wrong. You're not just wiping memories, you're messing with his identity. It's _ongoing intervention_. On some planets, that's worse than murder."

The Doctor nodded. "Would it be better to tell him the truth? Do you seriously think he'd be better off?"

"That's not the point."

"It's the only point," said the Doctor. "Whatever you think you know about this, whatever you've heard, I assure you the reality is much worse. We're all in terrific danger. Even if it's not true. Even if there's just a _ rumor_ that he's..." The Doctor shook his head. "I won't wipe their memories. Just buffer them a bit. I'll tell them everything I can—of course I will. But that's all."

"And you make those decisions, sweetie. All by yourself."

"Every day," he said. "Every minute."

River put her mug on the floor. She didn't want it anymore. In fact, she wanted nothing more than to be out of this box and back to her simple little life. Every corner of this place held a perfect memory for her, all of them undermined by this arrogant young man who drew her in with a familiar need—to be validated, reassured or challenged—and repelled her with his alien morals. She wanted to help him out of this swamp, but it was too early for him.

And, maybe, far too late for her.

"Well," she said. "This has been lovely. Do come again." In a gesture so quick she might have imagined it, she squeezed his hand, then hopped down the steps. At the door she took a moment to collect herself, to pick up the role of confident leader that the other prisoners demanded of her. It was true: the walls of a prison kept a lot of things inside.

The Doctor said, "Come with us."

"I'm sorry?" River's hand was already on the lock.

"You don't have to stay," said the Doctor. He strode over to the control panel, twisting dials and pushing buttons in an absent-minded way. "I'll take you somewhere else."

Despite everything, it was an offer that planted hope in fertile soil, that revived every desire River had: to be free, to go—finally—home, to go back to the beginning and start again. But no. Her sentence was long, the balance of her debt still due. Anyway, the storm brewing in this box was bigger than any she'd faced in Stormcage Prison.

"You know," she said. "If you count the years that didn't happen, Rory's almost twice your age."

You found out, after some time in the universe, that very old things were often very powerful, and the Doctor and Rory were very old indeed.

"Really." The Doctor turned a lever and flipped a switch. "How interesting."

"Don't do it," she said. It was the last thing she could do for him. "Don't shut him out. Don't put yourself on a collision course with him."

"I'm not in the business of beheading rivals," said the Doctor. "Anyway, what do you suppose Rory and I would compete over?" He seemed to find the idea a patent absurdity.

"If you had the universe to divide between you? I'm sure I have no idea."

She threw open the lock and left him furrow-browed and staring.

###

From "The Blue Book of Cardiff" (Torchwood File DR-54966^28)

_Ishnahakaar—from the Draconian, meaning "__The Eye of the Storm__." So is it coming, or has it already passed? Is this the calm before or after?_

_The more I see of you these days the longer it all seems. Have pity on me, sweetheart, and don't come back till you know me better. For my part, I will not write again._

_Tardis left Stormcage Prison 23:50 local time/ 8 Lunar 1185 S.P.T. _


End file.
